Running Into Each Other
by Sunlight through Leaves
Summary: [Kakairu] After meeting each other after the genin exams, Kakashi and Iruka get to know each other better. ....Wow, better than the description sounds, I promise!
1. Meeting

Title

Anime: Naruto

Pairings: KakaIru! (if you don't like, please leave now)

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters sigh I also have no money, so don't bother suing me

Warning: Not beta-ed. Please ignore any spelling/word errors! Thanks!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi reached his house, darted in and slammed the door behind him. _Idiot!_ He berated himself. _Just what the hell were you thinking?!_

_Ummm…_ The rest of his brain replied, intelligently. _I don't think we were thinking._ And then it went back to trying to memorize the feeling of soft, adorable, blushing Chuunin in his arms. Kakashi slammed his head down on the counter and swore silently. _Forget it. He's never going to want to see me again. If I hadn't…._

OOOOO

_A few short moments before…._

Kakashi was making his way through downtown Konoha. He wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings, but you couldn't really blame him for that. The new volume of Icha Icha had arrived that day, and, considering he'd read the past volumes so many times that they were in danger of falling apart, you could forgive him for thoroughly burying his nose in the book the minute he was out of the bookstore. Unfortunately, he was not the only one moving through Konoha without paying attention, and as he rounded the corner, he ran smack into someone, knocking the other person flat on his ass. Kakashi sighed, mildly put off that his reading had been interrupted, but put Icha Icha into his pocket and went to offer the stranger a hand.

…..

Or not so much of a stranger. Sitting on his butt, in the midst of scattered papers, scrolls and books, was his team's former teacher. Iruka looked so surprised that Kakashi couldn't help but chuckle. "Iruka-sensei." He said, offering the Chuunin a hand, "Sorry, I didn't see you."

Iruka looked up at him, then took the proffered hand. He thought about yelling at the Jounin for not watching where he was going. _Honestly! He's a Jounin; he should be able to avoid people even if he _is_ reading some stupid, orange porn book._ On the other hand, he had to fight down laughter, since Kakashi managed looked so contrite. He settled on the latter, andflashed the other man a sheepish smile."Don't worry, Kakashi-sensei. No harm, no…." As he pulled himself to his feet using the other man's arm as leverage, his foot snagged on one of the books he'd been carrying. He stumbled forward and fell heavily against Kakashi's chest. Kakashi instinctively wrapped his arms around the Chuunin to keep him from collapsing to the ground.

They both froze. Iruka was leaning heavily against Kakashi, and his hands were splayed across the Jounin's chest. His head tilted back to meet the one uncovered eye, and Iruka felt the arms around his back and waist tighten, instead of letting him go.

Kakashi stared down into the warm brown eyes. He was falling; falling forever. A faint blush spread across Iruka's cheeks as the Chuunin became aware of the prolonged contact and the unwavering stare that had captured his gaze. Kakashi's mind let out a low moan: Does this man have _any_ idea how cute he is when he blushes? Kakashi felt his weight shift forward, and he realized with a start that his brain was no longer in control. His head dropped down; his heart ignoring the screams from his brain that said that this was really not a good idea.

Iruka nearly jumped out of his skin as warm lips shrouded in black fabric pressed against his own. The kiss was brief, and then contact was broken. Arms disentangled from his waist and shoulders, and Iruka got one brief look at a very startled Kakashi before the Jounin turned tail and fled. Literally.

Iruka's legs gave out from underneath him, and he sank to the ground. One hand rose involuntarily to touch his lips, while the other fisted over his heart. The kiss had been brief, but it had left him weak in the knees, unable to stand. The spots on either side of his neck where Kakashi's hands had brushed as he'd pulled away felt like they were on fire. Kakashi had…..Kakashi had….

"Oi, Iruka-sensei!" The shout startled him out of his daze, and he turned to see Naruto tearing down the street. "Iruka-sensei? Why are you sitting on the ground?"

Iruka just blinked at him. His mind was still replaying the memory of Kakashi leaning into him and pressing his lips against his own. His mind was still wrapped up in the feeling of being held tight against the Jounin's body. His mind was definitely not paying attention to what Naruto was saying or doing. He focused on the kyuubi boy when Naruto offered him a stack of papers that he'd gathered up. "A-ano, Iruka-sensei? Are you alright?"

Iruka slowly pushed himself to his feet and gathered up the scrolls, books and papers he'd dropped. "I'm fine, Naruto." He said, absently-mindedly, dropping his hand onto the boy's head. "I'll take you out to eat tomorrow." Had he been in the right state of mind would have realized that he _shouldn't_ volunteer to feed Naruto - he'd gotten into the habit of only giving in if Naruto brought it up first. However, Iruka was not in his right state of mind, and he was really only concerned with one thing. Finding Kakashi and finding out whether this had meant what he desperately hoped it meant.

Naruto watched Iruka move off down the street and shook his head. _Adults are so weird…._

OOOOOOO

Back in the present…. 

Kakashi collapsed onto his couch and dropped his head into his hands. _Note to self: Next time you're in the Mission Room, steal the schedule._ There was no way he could face Iruka after this. The thought made his heart clench; the last thing he wanted to do was stop seeing Iruka. It was like asking him to remove a piece of his soul. _I've fallen…_ Kakashi realized with a start. _I've fallen for him…_

And it had all started out so innocently, too! Kakashi had not been looking for a friend, let alone someone he would fall in love with; he'd simply been looking for information on his new team. While all of the genin had files about their various strengths and weaknesses, he knew that teachers of students always possessed some innate knowledge that never made it into the files. And if he was going to make Team 7 work, he was going to need the information that wouldn't be in the files. So he'd sought out their former teacher.

OOOOOOOO

_Several weeks ago…._

Kakashi wandered slowly through the halls in the Academy, searching for the right room. He'd gleaned the information about Team 7's former teacher's name and general description from Naruto during that morning's practice; now he just had to find him.

One door towards the end of the hall stood open, and Kakashi moved silently into the doorway and stuck his head into the room. At the far end of the room, a dark-haired Chuunin with a long scar that ran straight across his nose was hunched over the desk and surrounded by several large stacks of paper. _Must be him._ Kakashi mused. …._Oh, yeah. I've seen him in the Mission room before._ For some reason that he couldn't fathom at the time, he stopped in the doorway and waited for a moment, studying the man behind the desk.

Kakashi's lips curled up slightly. This man was handsome; perhaps not strikingly so, but there was something about him that seemed to shine out through his eyes as they studied the sheets of paper before him. It surprised him, that this man was so attractive. He'd learned a little bit about the teacher before coming here, and almost all of the information suggested that Umino Iruka was a loner, no friends, no family, no significant other. In fact, the only friend he seemed to have was Naruto, and Kakashi's brief acquaintance with Naruto had led him to the conclusion that Iruka must have extremely bad taste if he actually preferred Naruto's company.

As he watched, Iruka's brows drew together, and one hand rose up to absentmindedly scratch at his scar. He lifted the paper to scrutinize it more closely, then shook his head and heaved an enormous sigh. He set the paper back on the desk and made a few quick marks on it before moving it to the smaller pile of 'Already graded papers.' Iruka grabbed the next paper from the stack, and after a couple of minutes, he smiled broadly and made a single mark on the paper before moving it to the completed pile. Kakashi felt a smile tugging at his lips as he watched. _Do you care so much about you students, Iruka-sensei?_

Kakashi made his way from the door to the desk and stopped a few feet from the front. "Iruka-sensei?"

"Yes." Iruka stacked the papers, put the cap on his pen, and rested his hands on his desk. "Can I help you?" It came out sharper than he'd intended, but the giant stack of papers on his desk should have warned any sane person not to bother him.

Iruka had responded without looking up. As he finished speaking, he raised his head and met the eyes – well, eye – of his visitor. He recognized the infamous copy-nin immediately; it was hard not to. _Well that explains why he was brave enough to bother me. I don't think anyone has ever accused Hatake Kakashi of being sane._

Kakashi smiled at him, "Well, I was actually hoping to pick your brains about my students."

Iruka didn't bother to hide his impatience. "You have their files." And he reached for the next paper he needed to grade.

Kakashi reached out and put his hand gently on top of the paper. "Maaa, but I was hoping to hear your opinions. There's got to be stuff about these students that's not in their files."

Iruka studied Kakashi. For a Jounin who had never passed a single class, he seemed to have a pretty good idea of how to get a team to work together. And he was right. Iruka knew things about this particular group of genin that would definitely help out their training. But he was on the verge of beating Kakashi for daring to interrupt his grading particularly when he was this pressed. Of course, Iruka didn't stand a chance of landing a hit on the copy-nin…. He settled for a less-than-polite verbal response. "I really don't have time." _Man, that didn't sound nasty at all!_ Iruka'd built up way too much patience with little kids over the years; he rubbed at the scar across the bridge of his nose in an attempt to cover the blush that was spreading across his face.

Kakashi heard the tone of dismissal in the Chuunin's voice and was about to leave him in peace when the other man reached up for his scar again and started to blush. Kakashi had no idea what he was embarrassed about, but the Chuunin was starting to fascinate him, and so, against his better judgment, he tried one more time before leaving. "Later then. Maybe over dinner? You have to eat sometime, you know."

"Dinner?" Iruka looked like he'd never heard the word before.

"Maa, maybe ramen?" Kakashi couldn't help but chuckle at the panicked look on Iruka's face, and he raised his hands to hold off any protests. "Don't worry, I'm buying. I heard that Naruto's been trying to eat you out of house and home."

Iruka opened his mouth to protest, "I can pay for myself…" But the words trailed off. Kakashi was already in the doorway.

"See you at six?" Kakashi called over his shoulder.

"Yeah, six…" Iruka muttered. He'd already returned to grading papers.

Kakashi paused at the door to watch the Chuunin. Iruka's brows drew down again as he stared at the paper in front of him, and his hand rose back up to scratch absentmindedly at his scar. _Dinner is definitely going to be interesting…._

OOOOOOOOOOO

AN: More to come. I'm switching back and forth between writing this and writing my royai fic, which also isn't finished, so which ever I get more reviews for, I'll update sooner ((bribery!)). REVIEW REVIEW! But don't flame the couple! Ummmm, I kinda wanted to write a fic talking about Kakashi and Iruka getting to know each other, instead of just falling for each other like a lot of the fics do (not that those fics aren't great 8D). Anyway, like it? Hate it? Let me know what you think!

Sunlight through Leaves


	2. Dinner

_A little after 6…._

Kakashi scrambled down the street, heading for Ichiraku. Anyone who knew of the copy-nin knew of his decided lack of respect for being on time and would therefore believe that the copy-nin never scrambled anywhere. But Kakashi was scrambling now. The rest of the afternoon had crawled by; Kakashi had tried to pass the time by reading Icha Icha while Sasuke and Naruto attempted to beat each other up. But it was really hard to read with Sakura screaming praises for Sasuke practically in his ears. It was also really hard to read because his mind kept drifting back to the Chuunin he'd met this afternoon.

_He wasn't afraid of me._ Kakashi shook his head in vague astonishment. There were few people who reacted to him as if he was a normal person. Gai treated him as an elite ninja, but the two didn't really interact outside of their competitions. Even Kurenai and Asuma, though he considered them his friends, interacted with him from a distance. It was almost as if an invisible wall was placed between him and everyone else. But Umino Iruka….The man had just brushed him off as if he didn't care that Kakashi knew several hundred ways to kill someone with his bare hands. It was fascinating. Kakashi wanted to spend more time with this man, if only so that he could feel human for the short time that he spent with the Chuunin. Of course, he had no idea if Iruka would behave the same way when he wasn't in his own classroom and safely hidden behind a stack of papers. He had no idea if Iruka would be the same person when he wasn't thoroughly distracted by something else. But he wanted to find out.

At ten to six, Kakashi was about to dismiss Team 7 and head out to Ichiraku. As he opened his mouth to speak, Naruto made some comment about beating Sasuke in the last exercise. Sakura's face turned black, and she pulled back her fist and decked Naruto. Ten minutes later, Kakashi'd separated them and smacked all three of them around a little. "You have to work together, or your team will not survive. The most important part of…." He trailed off as the bells in the village started to ring. _6?_ Kakashi let out a brief mental yelp, muttered something at his students about continuing tomorrow morning and disappeared in a cloud of chakra smoke.

Just outside of Ichiraku, Kakashi slowed down and rearranged his body into its customary slump. He entered the ramen stand at a much slower pace than he'd approached it, and was utterly relieved to discover that the Chuunin was still at the counter. Okay, so he'd only been ten minutes late, but he'd figured that Iruka – since he had so blatantly pointed out that he had other things to do than eat dinner with Kakashi - wouldn't wait around for him. He knew that if Iruka left before he got there, Kakashi would have no chance of spending time with the Chuunin again. But he was still here.

Kakashi smiled. Iruka's left elbow was propped up on a stack of papers, and his head was bent over what had to be an assignment. Kakashi cleared his throat, then, "Gomen, Iruka-sensei."

Iruka jumped slightly, then spun around, looked blankly at Kakashi and then looked at the clock on the back wall of Ichiraku. "Kakashi-sensei? You're early…" Iruka gave him a lopsided smile. "I even brought my work so I could keep myself busy until you showed up."

Kakashi looked at him in disbelief; his face falling, "Is my lack of punctuality that famous?"

Iruka shrugged, "Naruto's mentioned it a few times." Iruka's face softened, and he smiled again. "Quite a few times."

Kakashi couldn't help but smile back. "Maaa, he exaggerates." He settled into a seat next to Iruka and waited as the Chuunin cleared the papers off the counter and slipped them into the shoulder bag that was hanging over the back of the chair.

"So…" Iruka laced his fingers together and leaned his elbows against the counter, "Kakashi-sensei, what do you want to know?"

Kakashi's single visible eye curved upwards, "Anything you can think of."

"Ummm…" Iruka's hand went up to his scar. "Well, I…I'm not really sure where to start."

Kakashi shrugged. "Why don't you just tell me some stories?"

Iruka leaned back, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Well…." Kakashi spent the next few hours being completely entertained by the man sitting next to him. He'd always heard that teachers could see everything from the front of the class, but he had no idea of just how much they could see. He learned more than he ever thought he would about his students and was starting to get a clearer picture of just who they were. The amusing stories of his students – like Naruto painting the Hokage monument. Kakashi remembered hearing about that, but had no idea that Naruto had been behind that – were interspersed with sadder stories about how hard it was for Naruto and Sasuke to grow up alone.

Iruka fell silent and studied his ramen before a smile started to tug at his lips. Kakashi prodded him with a finger as the silence between them lengthened, "What's so funny?"

Iruka started, " Oh, I just…I was just remembering." He shook his head, the smile growing. "The day they were assigned to you, Sasuke and Naruto kissed."

Kakashi gaped at him. "What?!"

Iruka grinned at him. "Yeah, when I came in, it looked like Sakura was on the verge of killing Naruto. It didn't take much prodding later to find out what had happened. Apparently, Naruto was standing on the desk glaring at Sasuke, and someone bumped him into Sasuke, and…." Iruka's hand gestures made the rest of the story obvious, and Kakashi dissolved into helpless laughter.

Kakashi gasped and got himself under control. "Weeell, that explains a lot." He looked over at the man beside him. "Any more?" He asked hopefully. While he was loathe to admit it, he was actually enjoying himself, and he didn't really want to give up the time he was spending with Iruka.

Again, the customary hand raised to his scar as Iruka thought it over, then slowly shook his head. "You know, I can't think of anything else."

"What about you?" The words were out of Kakashi's mouth before he could stop them. He hadn't meant to invade Iruka's privacy like that, but he didn't want the Chuunin to stop talking. There was something incredibly…human…about Iruka.

Iruka looked over at him, surprise written all over his face. "What about me?"

Kakashi realized that he didn't really know where to start, but he remembered the overwhelmed look on Iruka's face when he'd been looking at the stack of papers on his desk, and he had to ask. "Why do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Teach."

Iruka opened his mouth, closed it, then answered with a sheepish smile. "It's about all I'm good at." Then he grabbed his bag off the back of the chair and stood quickly. "Gomen, Kakashi-sensei. I really need to get to work." And he ducked out under the door and out into the street.

Kakashi sat, stunned, at the counter. _What did I say?And why did he lie to me?_ The way Iruka's eyes had dropped and the way he'd shifted his weight before answering all pointed to the fact that he was lying. Well, maybe not lying, but certainly not telling the whole truth. After divulging a myriad of stories about three of his students, the Chuunin had fled at the mere mention of his own life. Kakashi turned to mark the escape route of the other man, his mind whirling as he contemplated what to do next. Then his eye curled up into a smile, and he left Ichiraku after paying the bill and walked back to his apartment. Tomorrow he would start up a routine activity that would quickly become his favorite part of the day – Iruka-stalking.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Iruka tugged at the strap of his bag, pulling it higher onto his shoulder. He couldn't remember many times that he had felt so uncomfortable. He never talked to anyone about his personal life. The Sandaime sometimes managed to pry one-word answers to direct questions out of him, but Iruka never volunteered the information. He sighed, wishing he hadn't said anything at all. Telling the partial truth had bothered him, admitting that the only thing he was good at was teaching – at least he believed that – to one of the best ninjas in Konoha was even worse.

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. Spending time with Kakashi had been more fun than he'd expected. He realized, about half-way through dinner, that he was rambling, but Kakashi had watched him the entire time, with a slight curl to his eye that indicated he was smiling. Iruka didn't make friends easily and, while spending time with Naruto was fun, the boy was still several years his junior, and Iruka couldn't really relate to him. He'd blurted out something about himself, about his personal life, after only a few hours in Kakashi's presence. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he still wanted to spend more time with the enigmatic copy-nin. But he couldn't fathom how he could possibly approach the Jounin. He was pretty sure that Kakashi wouldn't want to see him again now that he had all the information that Iruka could provide. Iruka heaved an enormous sigh, unlocked his apartment and collapsed onto the couch with his ever present stack of papers and buried himself in grading, hoping to forget about the whole evening.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Read and Respond! Pleasepleasepleaseplease (begging). Let me know what you think and let me know about anything I can do to make this better. Next time: Kakashi takes up Iruka-stalking!

I hope you're enjoying this so far!

- Sunlight Through Leaves


	3. End

This note is for anyone who happens to be reading this and my other stuff (not likely, but hey); This is getting updated first cause more people are waiting for this one that for the others (12 vs 3…oh, I'm so popular…), and I don't want to get lynched. Plus, this is cute and sweet and I have no time to update everything. And the rest of the time is spent banging my head against my thesis and the computer that holds it…therefore, I spend my break time creating fluff!

I've created cover art for this:

http://www deviantart com/deviation/49109221/

Replace spaces with periods to resolve (drawn more for my amusement than anything else, is kinda crappy).

Alright, I'm done with notes! On with the Iruka-stalking!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"There's a simpler solution to this, you know."

Kakashi turned to glare at the little tan dog crouched by his feet. "Oh?" _This is the _only _solution. What the heck is he talking about!_

Pakkun looked up at him, his expression clearly saying, _you're an idiot,_ "Yeah. Go down and ask him to go out to dinner again."

Kakashi opened and closed his mouth several times before managing to get his brain around Pakkun's solution. "How is that simpler?!"

"You're kidding, right?" Pakkun studied Kakashi's face, and sighed. "You're not kidding…."

Kakashi gestured at the man below them, "I have no reason to go talk to him! I mean, before I needed information. What's my reason now?"

"You want to spend time with him?" It wasn't really a question.

"There's no way I can just…." Kakashi's voice trailed off. He may have been an elite ninja, renowned throughout the world for his skills, but he just plain sucked when it came to people skills. _No, this is definitely the best way to go about it_.

Pakkun heaved an enormous sigh. He'd been following Kakashi around all morning, and Kakashi had been following Iruka. Pakkun vaguely wondered how many days of this he was going to have to endure.

"You don't have to be here, you know." Kakashi pointed out, recognizing Pakkun's boredom.

"I have to make sure you don't do anything stupid."

Kakashi gave him an incredibly innocent look that didn't fool him for a second, "What makes you think I would do anything stupid?"

"One: it's you. Two: you're _stalking_ a fellow ninja because you're too scared to just go down and see if he wants to hang out with you. Now, myself and most normal people would call that an overreaction."

Kakashi looked incredibly put out.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

_The next day….._

Iruka sighed and scrubbed his hand across his eyes. He'd been up most of the night grading the damn papers that he hadn't gotten to on the night that he'd spent with Kakashi. It was hard to believe that that had only been two days ago. He hadn't seen the Jounin since then, and he was a little surprised at the vague sadness that had settled in his chest when Kakashi hadn't contacted him again. Then again, he _had_ practically run out on the other man, so who knew what Kakashi was thinking about him.

Iruka dumped the papers onto his desk, and his bag quickly followed. A slight clank emitted from the bottom of the bag as the training weapons in it shifted when they connected with the desk. Today happened to be one of Iruka's least favorite lessons to teach. Physics of throwing weapons. None of the students ever understood it the first time around. Three quarters of the students didn't understand it by the second time around, and it usually went rapidly downhill from there. The day typically ended with Iruka completely exhausted and brain-dead, having explained the same concept about ninety different ways. And, by the end, more than half the class was still blinking blankly at him from behind their desks. Then they would conveniently forget everything between the end of school that day and the beginning of class on the next day. Which meant that Iruka would have to start all over again. Thus, today marked the beginning of a rather trying week or so in which Iruka would attempt to get more than half his class to the point of understanding physics. Preferably without killing all of them in the process.

_I need coffee. _Iruka grabbed his mug and headed out of the classroom in search of the wonderful caffeine that might allow him to survive this day. Might.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Kakashi lengthened his stride, heading for the break room in the academy, checking the clock in the hall. Luckily for him, Iruka followed an incredibly tight and mostly invariable schedule. Kakashi rounded the corner and walked into the door of the break room and came within a hair's breadth of colliding with the dark-haired figure that was on it's way out. They both skidded to a stop and looked at each other.

"Ah, g-gomen, Kakashi-sensei." Iruka cradled his mug of coffee against his chest, ridiculously happy that it hadn't spilled on him. That definitely would have ruined his day.

Kakashi stepped around Iruka, "Maaa, no worries." He smiled happily at the other man, "I should have been watching where I was going." The smile faded slightly. "Iruka-sensei, you look stressed."

Iruka groaned in response.

"Well that doesn't sound good." Kakashi grabbed a mug from the shelf above the coffee pot, "Wanna talk about it?"

Iruka was in the middle of taking a sip of the coffee and shot him a surprised look over the rim of the mug, then swallowed. "It's not important." He stared down into the surface of the coffee, studying his own reflection instead of meeting Kakashi's eyes.

"Maaa, come on, spill."

Iruka started talking slowly, then faster. Soon he'd explained the whole situation to Kakashi, who was nodding sympathetically, and when he'd finished, a short silence descended between them.

"So," Kakashi said slowly, "Basically, your students are just stupid?"

Iruka leapt to his class's defense, "Well, they're not that…" He trailed off at the look on Kakashi's face. "Okay, maybe they are."

Kakashi chuckled, suddenly. "You could always teach them through experience."

"Experience?"

"Mm. Throw shuriken at them until they learn how to dodge."

Iruka almost snorted coffee out of his nose. "No thanks; I like my job." He grinned at Kakashi, and the Jounin felt his heart lift, amazed that someone had turned such a warm and open smile in his direction. Iruka's eyes widened, suddenly, and he check his watch. "Ah, gomen. I have to go or I'm going to be late." And he disappeared from the doorway, leaving Kakashi standing in the break room smiling into his coffee. It had worked. He'd managed to make contact with Iruka while making it all look like a coincidence, and the Chuunin seemed none the wiser. Maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to play this out until he was sure if Iruka wanted to spend time with him.

OOOOOOOOO

Team 7 was lounging on the bridge. Sasuke looked bored and dark, as usual, and Naruto and Sakura both looked impatient. Kakashi poofed onto the bridge in the midst of them. "Yo."

"YOU'RE LATE!" Sakura and Naruto screamed at him in unison.

"Maaaa," Kakashi said, rubbing at the back of his head. "But there was this dolphin, and I had to…."

"LIAR!"

Now, the more observant members of Team 7 (namely Sakura and Sasuke, since Naruto's a little slow on the uptake) noticed that from this day onward, all of the Kakashi's excuses started out with 'but there was this dolphin and….'

OOOOOOOOOOO

Iruka pulled his bag higher on his shoulder as he trudged home. He couldn't remember being this tired in a long time, and all he really wanted to do was crawl into bed, but he had to prepare for class tomorrow. He sighed and lifted his head, spotting a shock of silver hair that was rapidly becoming familiar. "A-ano, Kakashi-sensei!" Iruka gritted his teeth, immediately regretting saying anything. _Why did I just do that?_ He half expected Kakashi to continue on as if he hadn't heard the Chuunin call his name.

However, the Jounin stopped and looked over his shoulder, smiling happily when he caught sight of Iruka. "Iruka-sensei! Looks like you survived."

Iruka walked a little faster until he'd caught up with the copy-nin. "Yeah, well, I kept thinking about your suggestion of throwing shuriken at them. That helped a lot."

"Now, Iruka. Fantasizing about killing your students is not a good thing for a teacher to be doing."

Iruka chuckled, falling easily into the give and take of teasing, "Not killing, per se." He paused for a moment and caught Kakashi's look of disbelief. "Well, maiming, perhaps."

Kakashi laughed outright. "So, where are you headed?"

"Home." Iruka gestured in the general direction of his apartment complex. "You?"

"Same." Kakashi replied. "Same direction to."

"Ah." Iruka said quietly. He was rather pleased that the Jounin was headed the same way.

They walked most of the rest of the way in silence. Iruka offered a mumbled goodbye when he reached the door to his apartment building, and Kakashi watched him walk up the stairs and slip inside.

Kakashi'd timed his journey home to match up with Iruka's, figuring that, if the Chuunin didn't notice him, he'd just have to try harder tomorrow. He grinned as he realized that Iruka had called out to him and had hurried to catch up with him.

OOOOOOOOO

The next couple of weeks saw a very similar pattern develop between Iruka and Kakashi. They almost always met at the break room in the morning and walked home together after work. Kakashi also taken to finding random times to run into Iruka (the stalking that he did on his time off helped him figure out when Iruka was going to be in different places), and Kakashi had to admit that he started looking forward to seeing Iruka's bleary-eyed expression in the morning as he poured himself a cup of coffee and hearing the stories about Iruka's class at the end of the day.

One day Kakashi scheduled his purchase of Icha Icha to match up with Iruka's lunch break. He had not, however, expected to literally run into the Chuunin. And he had certainly not expected what had happened afterwards to happen….

OOOOOOOOOO

_Back in the present…._

Iruka stood outside Kakashi's door, his hand raised and poised to knock. He bit his lip, considering how he should react and hoping that Kakashi had not just been feeling all hot and bothered because of the new edition of a certain orange porn book. He shook his head. _If I don't do this now, I'm never going to do it._ Iruka rapped his knuckles sharply on the door, and waited.

Inside the apartment, Kakashi whipped his head up out of his hands and stared at the door. _I'm sure it's just someone telling me that the Hokage needs me. I'm sure it's not Iruka telling me to get lost and never come near him again. It can't be Iruka…._His brain went into overdrive, running through possible situations. _But what if it is Iruka, and he feels…._ Kakashi leapt up and threw open the door before he lost his never.

Iruka stood in the doorway, looking slightly murderous.

_Oh, god. He hates me._

Iruka walked in and grabbed the front of Kakashi's vest….

……

And pulled himself against the man's chest, pressing his lips against Kakashi's masked ones. The kiss was about as brief as the first one that Kakashi'd initiated, then Iruka pulled back. "You jerk! How can you just kiss me and leave!"

Kakashi's face rearranged itself from surprised to leering, "What? Did you want something else?"

The anger disappeared from Iruka's face, to be replaced by a brilliant blush. _Soooo cute,_ Kakashi thought. "Well…I…uh…that is…"

Iruka yelped as strong arms wrapped around, and he was lifted bodily and tossed onto the couch. Lips pressed down on his own, this time without the obstruction of cloth, and Iruka pushed back at Kakashi's shoulders, wanting to see the other man's face.

Kakashi sat back, letting Iruka look at him, but caught the Chuunin's hand when Iruka reached for the band of cloth covering his eye. The sharingan was what made Kakashi so a good assassin, and he did not want to reveal that side of himself to Iruka.

"Please…" Iruka whispered.

"I can't. I can't let you…" But Kakashi's grip on Iruka's wrist was slipping, the warm light in Iruka's eyes was shaking his resolve.

Iruka felt his hand come free and reached forward to push up the cloth, revealing sharingan and scar, then leaned back on his elbows to look at Kakashi. After a moment, the corner of his mouth hooked up into the same lopsided smile that Kakashi'd seen the first time they'd met. "See? You're not that scary."

Kakashi stared at the other man, then pulled Iruka up into his arms, holding him tightly. _Human. Iruka….thank you._

Iruka pulled back slightly so that he could plant a kiss on Kakashi's mouth. "I'm glad you decided to keep running into me."

"What?"

"Honestly, did you think I wasn't going to notice that you were following me?"

"I'm a Jounin!"

"Yes, well, I'm a teacher. I have a natural sense for when people are plotting things." Iruka laughed at the crushed expression on Kakashi's face. "Of course, I wasn't sure _why_ you were following me until you showed up for coffee for the fourth day in a row. And even then I didn't know that you….that this…was more than friendship." He reached out and cupped Kakashi's face with his hand.

Kakashi bent his head and captured Iruka's mouth, determined to show him that this was definitely more than friendship.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

_A few hours later…._

Iruka groaned sleepily as Kakashi gathered him up against his chest, gently stroking the dolphin's hair. "Maa, Iruka?"

"hm…"

"Why _do_ you teach?" He felt Iruka stiffen against his side and almost regretted asking, until he felt the other man slowly relax again.

"Well, what I said before was partly true. I'm…never going to be a Jounin. But even more so, these children – no matter how stupid they seem or how young they seem – are the future of Konoha. And this basis will determine whether or not they will live up to the standards of ninja in Konoha. I…I want to help with that."

Kakashi tightened his grip around Iruka, "You're amazing."

Iruka stared up at him when he realized that Kakashi was serious, then smiled and nestled his head back down into Kakashi's shoulder. "Love you." He barely whispered it out, but Kakashi heard it.

"Love you, too, Iruka-kun."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

_Additional ending, because I thought it would be funny…._

Pakkun raced into Kakashi's apartment, tore through the living room, down the hall and into the bedroom. A flying leap got him up onto the bed and he landed awkwardly on two sets of legs. ….._two….._ Pakkun stared at Iruka who stared right back. All thought of the important information that he was going to tell Kakashi was driven out of Pakkun's head. He couldn't remember ever having come home to find the copy-nin in bed with someone else. "Uh….I…going…somewhere…" Pakkun trailed off, turned tail and fled. _I'm going to be scarred for life…_..

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

It's over! Tell me what you think!! Hate? Love? Dumb ending? Hit the review button and let me know.

Sunlight Through Leaves


	4. Sequels

Thanks to a few of the reviews, I decided to continue this story, so I've posted a sequel, though I think there are going to be many more to come. The sequel's called: 'Running Away From Others' 


	5. More sequels!

There's another sequel! It's called 'Running for Life' A little more serious, but it should be good. Check it out!!

Sunlight through leaves 


	6. And more

New sequel called 'Running Late' Check it out! It's a sweet, oneshot, that I hope you enjoy. 


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